Preschoolers' Christmas Books

 

For Christmas this year I wanted to make an Advent calendar for my family.  I have seen all over Pinterest making the Advent calendar out of Christmas books, so for weeks I have been searching and scouring the internet looking for good suggestions for books.  I had compiled a master list of the best books.  Or so I thought.

Image from http://www.oopseydaisyblog.com/2011/11/christmas-book-advent.html

I placed holds on these books over Thanksgiving weekend.  When I got them all home I was devastated. These were books for children 8 years old (or so) and older.  My kids are 3 years and 6 months old.  We need more pictures and less words.  

I returned 90% of the books I checked out and went on a search to find age-appropriate Christmas books.  What you will find below are the books that we have read and like for this Holiday season.  Some of the books are religious, some are Christmasy, and some are just winter books.  I don't have any suggestions for Hannukah, Kwanzah or other holidays.  In fact I am on the hunt for a good preschool St. Lucia book.  Please let me know if you have one!  

I have included a picture for each book and have also hyperlinked the title so you can easily find each one.

First up, Room For A Little One by Martin Waddell.  This one takes place in the manger and is simple enough for my son to understand.  He LOVES reading and talking about the animals in the manger.

The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats.  I grew up reading this winter book.  I used the board book version and my son has loved looking at the winter scenes.  I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona and so I remember reading about snow with wonder.  Now reading it and living in Salt Lake City I understand the story better.  Although my son doesn't exactly understand why the snowball disappears.  haha.

The Christmas Mice by Fiona Watt.  This has been one of my favorites.  It's a touch and feel book and the best one I have come across yet!  I love that on each page there are multiple items to feel and different textures on each page.  This is how all touch and feel books should be!  I get so tired of having the same single texture on each page.

Elmo's Merry Christmas by Lori Froeb.  This is my son's favorite, but it is my nemesis.  It has flaps that open up on each page, which Stephen LOVES.  Eh, not so much for me.  There's 10+ flaps on every page and my son takes FOREVER to open each one.  I will be taking this one back soon, but I am sure children love this book.

 

Llama Llama Holiday Drama by Anna Dewdney.  I found this one from a Christmas book list. It is perfect for preschoolers.  It talks about the excitement of waiting for Christmas that can become too much for a little one.  We are going through this exact thing.  My son has asked almost every night if we can have Christmas already, "Please, Please, Please, Please!"

 

What Am I? Christmas by Anne Margaret Lewis.  Each page of this book has clues for the child to figure out what the Christmas figure is.  Stephen LOVES flipping to see the answers to the clues.  It's a cute one.

 

Any of these books would make a great addition to your home library, and only one of them has gotten on my nerves.  I will continue to add to this list as we read more of our choices.

Oh Christmas Tree…Oh Christmas Tree-Kid Craft

Can you guess what I made these beautiful tiny trees out of?

Party Hats and Birthday Streamers!  I kid you not!  I wanted to add some new decorations to our décor, without spending a dime. 

I just so happened to have some party hats that I have had for YEARS.  At the last party the elastic (that keeps them on your head) got used to make sling shots (really great slingshots and bow and arrows!  They even worked!  Sometimes my children are so ingenious!).

I saw them doing it, and didn’t mind because we had had these hats for so long.  I don’t know, however, why I saved the darn hats, but I did.

This is one that the kids decorated with a pipe cleaner garland and gem stickers!

 

I have to tell you I had a few fails at first.  I knew I wanted to cover them with tissue squares.  You know how you did it as a kid:  Take a small tissue square and wrap it around the end of an unsharpened pencil, dip the tissue end into glue, stick it onto your paper, pull your pencil out, and wha-la!

 

I did not have any red or green tissue paper.  So, I tried using thin Christmas Scrapbook paper.  Then I tried a few more supplies until I stumbled upon the perfect material! 

Streamers!  I love the texture the streamers gave this, even more than if I had had tissue paper!  However, be ready to cut a TON of squares for each tree.  Then, cut triple that amount!  No kidding.

 

Another disclosure is that because I used party hats it was hard to get the squares to stay on.  Party hats are quite smooth texture and squares will easily slip off.  So we would just add some squares haphazardly around the hat.  Then, let them dry.  Once the glue dries they stay on really well.  Then, we come back and fill in.  Repeat this step a bunch.

 

Could be a fun craft to keep your kids busy while you are hiding away in a bedroom, wrapping presents…or busy baking and cooking!

 

Rebecca

Aebleskiver-Traditional Danish Recipe

My family is huge on traditions!  One thing that we love to celebrate, especially at the holidays, are traditions from Scandinavia because we have family that came from Denmark.  Making Aebleskiver is one of my favorite traditions from Scandinavia.  Aebleskiver is basically a pancake ball, only much yummier! 

This is the recipe that our whole family uses.  I love having recipe cards or books that have writing in them and you can see that they are well worn by the stains from foods as your loved ones have made the recipe using it!  This one is fantastic because you can see my Dad’s conversions to double and quadruple the recipe. Aebleskiver goes fast when we make it because we all love it, and there are a lot of us.  So we always quadruple it!!

 

You will need an aebleskiver pan to make this.  My parents were nice enough to gift each of their children with one of these pans as we moved out on our own!

 

Here is how I make Aebleskiver:

Ingredients

1/2 C butter, melted       2tsp Baking Powder

3 eggs, separated              1/2 tsp Salt

1 C Milk                                   1/2 tsp Cardamom

2 TBL Sugar                         Powdered Sugar

1 1/2 C Flour                        Butter for Pan

1.  In a large bowl, blend 1/2 cup melted butter, egg yolks, milk and sugar.  (blue bowl)

2.  In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and cardamom, if desired.  (green bowl)

3.  Stir into egg-yolk mixture.

4.  In a clean medium bowl, beat egg whites until stiff but not dry.

5.  Fold into flour mixture.

6.  Heat aebleskiver pan over medium-low heat until a drop of water sizzles when dropped into pan.

7.  Spoon 1/2 tsp butter into each cup; let melt.

8.  Spoon 1 rounded TBL batter into each cup. Cook about 1 minute on each side, using a knitting needle or long wooden skewer to turn balls.  (This is where I use a fork, as above!)

If heat is too high, centers will be doughy.   This picture shows 4 aebleskiver that have been turned and three that have not yet.  I filled these ones a little full it looks like!

8.  Dust each with powdered sugar. Serve hot. Makes 20 pancake balls.

FYI we don't use a knitting needle or skewer. We use two forks to turn the aebleskiver over. Also I never have cardamom on hand so I never add it.

Here is my Dad filling up some aebleskiver with jelly!  My Dad is usually the one to make aebleskiver.  He is also the one we gather around to hear wonderful stories about Denmark!

I have some aebleskiver on hand right now and now have a serious craving to go and finish them off!

 

I’d love to hear what fun traditions everyone else celebrates from other countries!

 

Rebecca…nom nom nom…

Eggshell Christmas Craft-Holly

Usually my eggshells go straight into my compost.  But this is a fun way to reuse them as well!

 

I love the great number of Christmas pictures that you can download free off of the internet.  I like to try and have the kids decorate them differently each time.  We’ve colored (with markers, pencils, crayons, etc) painted, melted crayon, glued yarn on, used tissue paper, etc. 

I thought I’d try something new this time.  So I boiled some eggshells (that I cleaned out) with green food coloring and some in red food coloring.  I used lots of dye because I wanted red, not pink! 

Here are some of our colored eggshell masterpieces.  This was really fun for the kids because they got to smash up their own eggshells.  We just covered the pictures with glue and then sprinkled the eggshells on top.  We did the red berry first, then the green leaves.

 

Rebecca

The Stockings Were Hung…

Busy busy busy!  But I thought you might like to see this stocking that I made.  Yes, homemade stockings take time.  But they are so worth it!  I really love this stocking.  It took me soooo many hours to cross stitch this thing, but totally worth it! 

 

I’m curious what everyone’s traditions are when it comes to stockings.  Homemade or store bought?  Big or little?  Do you put an orange in the toe?  What else do you fill it, when do you open them?

Look at the fun details on this thing!

And the ca-ute creatures are to die for!

 

What kinds of stockings do you have?  We actually have 3 sets…don’t ask. 

One my Mom fills for all of her kids and grandkids for Christmas Eve.  Last year I took those cheap red stockings and embroidered all of our names on them.  Then, we have the handmade ones.

 

Rebecca

Happy St. Lucia’s Day

St. Lucia’s Day is a mostly Scandinavian holiday.  Though St. Lucia was actually Italian.  We have Danish ancestry so we love celebrating Scandinavian things to help us remember our roots.  I love the thought that in Denmark they started celebrating this holiday to bring light in a time of darkness, in 1944.  This was a protest to the German occupation!  Danish history during that time is fantastic!  You should read about how the tiny country of Denmark banded together to protect their people.  They did not see Danish Jews as anything other than Danes!  AMAZING!! 

 

The above picture was one of our star boys in our St. Lucia’s Day procession last year.  In traditional St. Lucia’s Day parades you carry an actual candle, this was our safe version!

The holiday tradition is to have a parade where one unmarried girl gets chosen to wear a crown of candles and comes bearing saffron buns.  The children in the procession all wear white with a red sash.

In our version we sing the traditional Danish song and some boys even wear a Nisse Cap (the red one in the picture, not the blue sesame street cap worn by my teenage nephew!).

 

Papa (my Father) goes along with our procession to help the children sing the song (they have written versions they are reading from in the picture above).  We get together with my siblings and all my Nephews to do this at my Mom and Dad’s house.  These pictures were from our St. Lucia’s Day festivities last year.  We are all gearing up for our celebration today after the kids get out of school!  I have the only girls in the family so my oldest daughter always gets to be our St. Lucia girl!

 

I hope you might try some version of this to help your kids learn about other cultures.  I always loved learning about how other countries celebrate Christmas!

 

What traditions do you have that are from other countries?  I’d love to hear about them or even give me a link!

 

Rebecca

Candy Cane Rudolf The Red Nosed Reindeer

A great quick and easy craft to do with the kids!  Rudolf The Red Nosed Reindeer Candy Cane!  I only used what we had on hand even!  Gotta love that!  These will be adorning our gifts to friends and family this year.  Love them, especially because I remember making them as a kid, too!

I’m sure no tutorial is necessary but here are the parts needed.  We hot glued on the eyes and nose.  I put the hot glue on the eyes and nose and then they put them onto the candy cane.  I feel like my plate is looking at me!

Fun note is that my Son made these in school last year.  So he taught us all how to make them this year.  I loved how he explained it!

My kids made all of these and I think they all turned out great!

I especially love the wonky eyes!  Gives them more character, I think!

Rebecca
What are your favorite quick and easy Christmas Crafts?  Or what are the Christmas crafts that you remember making in your childhood?

Pizzelles and a Fun International Cookie Link

Pizzelles are such a beautiful cookie!  I thought it would be fun to make these with my Mom this year.  So we got together for a baking day and baked up a bunch of other fun cookies, too. 
I grew up with my Mother making these crispy cookies.  They are an Italian cookie, which I thought would be perfect to link up to my friend Pam’s International Winter Holiday Cookie Recipe Swap!  Go check it out for some really cool recipes!  Even better, if you have one, add it!

My Mom had the machine from this brochure/recipe card for years.  Last year it finally gave up the ghost and she bought a new one.  The old machine made 2 larger cookies at a time.    Look on that brochure at the beautiful designs that were imprinted on each side of the cookie!  So pretty!

I really thought the old brochure/recipe card was so much fun!  It is the recipe that we used.  In case you can’t see it here is the recipe:
6 Eggs                                                   1 C Margarine*
3 1/2 C Flour                                      4 tsp Baking Powder
1 1/2 C Sugar                                      2 TBL Vanilla or anise
*Don’t use more than one cup and don’t use oil substitute.
Beat eggs, adding sugar gradually.  Beat until smooth.  Add cooled melted margarine and vanilla or anise.  Sift flour and baking powder and add to egg mixture.  Dough will be sticky enough to be dropped by spoon.
Place a heaping teaspoonful of batter in the center of each grid pattern to make full size pizzelles.  Clip handles together during baking.  Bake until golden brown.  Baking time is half a minute, but will vary slightly with personal preference for browning, consistency of batter and size of pizzelles.
My Mom always made these with anise.  Our first batch this year we found out we had no anise.  So, we used vanilla.  We would highly advise using anise!!  So much yummier.  For me these cookies have to have that light licorice flavor to them!

This is my Mom’s new machine.  It makes 3 smaller pizzelles.  The designs are gorgeous, though I think each one should have been different!
We like the smaller size of these.

Here is the pizzelle maker in use.  Personally I like to not fill the molds up all the way so the edges are uneven and more snowflake like.  But if you fill them up all the way they can be a nice round circle cookie.

Aren’t they just gorgeous?  Has anyone else made these?  What are your international cookies or foods that you make during the holidays?  What or why do you make them? 
I make many things because my Mom did.  Many of her recipes are Scandinavian because our ancestors came from Denmark.  I love keeping traditions like this going!

Rebecca

I'm joining the fun at Tip Me Tuesdays, Whatever Goes Wednesdays, Remodelaholic, By StephanieLynn,

Shrinky Dink Ornaments or Charms

Aren’t these the cutest little charms or ornaments?  I had been in a paper crafting mood.  However, many of my paper crafts just do not last from year to year.  So, I made these to last!  They are made from that shrinky dink material.  I love how brightly colored these end up being! 

I used these as charms on my cookie exchange packages, charms for a bracelet, package toppers, and ornaments for a mini tree!

I made these by printing up a page of Christmas shapes.  I layered a clear shrinky dink page on top and traced and colored away!  Cut out and be sure to remember to punch a hole in them before you bake them!
You can see a post I did with these that turned them into charms on a Christmas bracelet!
Rebecca

I'm joining the fun at this party! StephanieLynn,

First Day of December Fun Ideas

Well, we started our month with waffles, whip cream, and Christmas Sprinkles for breakfast!  My kids were floored they got sugar for breakfast!  I’m strict when it comes to what my kids eat, that way when it is time to celebrate, I can let them splurge and know they will be ok!  

I have about 9 different kinds of Christmas sprinkles so they got to pick their sprinkles on each of their waffles.

Once they left for school this morning I put their Christmas pillowcases on their beds,

along with a present,

that is new pajamas!

 

I love starting out each month with a little surprise for the kids that is usually planned around a theme for the month.  December is quite easy as it has Christmas in it.  By giving them these things today, they get to use them the whole month long!  I don’t usually give gifts but this month they all needed new pajamas so I thought it would be the perfect gift.

 

I hope everyone is having a great Holiday and remembering to take the time out to make special memories with those you love! 

 

Rebecca